Well said Aine.
I've never cared for rpg type games, and have always considered the sandbox style of the sims to be something special, as I'm NOT a gamer, yet I've spent hundreds on the sims over the years and have happily let it become my escapism from the drags of real life/one of my favourite hobbies.
I understand that people don't just want a groundhog day-esque repeat of the same thing over and over, but to a large extent, isn't that what the sims is? if you compare all the add ons for sims 2 and sims 3, what they did in 3 was for the most part the same as 2, but they went about it in the right way; by further developing the themes of the packs with greater detail than before, and yes, they added new features here and there, but in line with that concept of expanding on the previous itineration. For example, the playerable, createable supernaturals in sims 3 expanded on the npc supernaturals & witches of sims 2.
I think they went about it in the right way with sims 4 seasons, especially the calendar - they took the idea of seasonal holidays from sims 3 and made they fully customisable by the player. Even there though, seasons isn't perfect; how come they could add snow piles but not snow depth? and also, there was no mist or fog in sims 4 seasons, which brings me on to my next point.
I can only speculate, but compared to sims 3, it seems that sims 4 packs have a lower budget, and maybe new, not-so-sandbox packs are an attempt to foster greater interest in sims 4 (maybe from the rpg community, which let's face it, is big) to generate more revenue.
